Carl Hutzler's Blog

Several months ago my son, Jacob, was bored one weekend. I was trying to get him away from the TV and interested in doing something. I told him I was available for a project. He said he wanted to build a go kart.

So I turned him onto the inter-tube and told him to get busy researching the pieces, costs, and designs. We intended to try and build something together for $300 or so. We had fun looking around the web and found a used roto-tiller engine for $80 on Craig’s List as well as several steering/wheel assembly designs. Things looked good.

Later in the week I spoke with a couple of folks and mentioned the project. Farmer John Mcintyre said he knew of a few good dumpster diving locations for scrap metal as well a cheap metal wholesaler out in Manassas. Jake and I did a little scouting in the dumpster and it showed good promise for steel rod and similar items.

I also mentioned the project to my brother-in-law. He did not say much other than he thought it was cool and he had always wanted a go kart as a kid. Little did I know that he (Byron) took it as a challenge.

About two weeks later Byron emailed me with news that he may have found a kart in good shape being sold by some kids who lived near his place in Hartford, CT. They said the kart ran but it was missing the chain and other parts. Plus the throttle assembly was all strange looking (kids had adjusted things).

Two weeks ago, Byron and his family were scheduled to come down to Virginia to visit. Byron bought the cart and a few parts for it and loaded it on top of his mini van! Not sure how he got it up there as it weighs nearly 200 lbs. Somehow he did and it managed not to bring the roof of the car down. So on he drove 400 miles down I-95 with a go kart on his roof.

When Jake saw it he was jumping for joy! He had no idea.

We got it down and started working on it. First we took the carberator off and showed the kids (Cousin Rex and Jake) how it worked. It was very clean inside which was a good sign. After bolting the carb back on we filled it with gas and tried it. It did start and ran a bit but the throttle springs/levers were wacked.

Byron and I spent an hour or two pondering it and how it was supposed to work. John my neighbor even offered some advice which turned out got us on the right track. But it was not until we found the very last page on the internet that google offered, that we got a picture of what it was really supposed to look like. It was a part supplier who actually sold the throttle assembly and the sales page had a picture of it with the rest of the engine in the background….exactly how it was supposed to go! But the image thumbnail was broken…damn! But after looking closely, we found that the java based pop-up window showed the correct URL and we were able to re-construct it. The image had what we needed. Cool. I love the internet.

After fixing the linkage, the engine ran fairly well. We fine tuned the idle a bit and put on the wheels. Then we had the kids get the rust off and give it a fresh coat of paint (well after the first set of test runs!). Byron added a skill and cross bones flag made out of an old fishing pole and spray painted backpack. The rest, is shall we say, history!

I have been using Time Machine to backup my user folder on my laptop for the last 6 months or so. Time Machine runs hourly and backs up my laptop to a network server (similar to Time Capsule). All has been running well…or so I thought!

Turns out that my Desktop Folder had some funky permissions on it and Time Machine was not able to read from that folder…hence it did not backup that folder. There was no error provided in my menu bar nor in the Time Machine system preference. Perhaps there is some error log in the console somewhere that shows the issue, but nothing to tell the user who thinks everything is just fine. Of course until you want something from that folder and it is not backed-up!

I fixed the issue by fixing the file permissions on the Desktop folder. But my faith in Time Machine is gone. Just be aware. Maybe someone from Apple will read this.